Ryan 'Puffing Billy' Park Has No Real Rail Plan

Parliamentary Secretary for the Illawarra and South Coast Gareth Ward MP has today celebrated the start of more carriages for the South Coast Line with the doubling of carriages on two key afternoon services to our region.

Mr Ward said that with less than three months to go to the NSW State Election, NSW Labor have called yet another press conference and have again failed to reveal their rail plan following their promise to slash the F6 extension plan and cause Illawarra commuters chaos for years to come.

“They are just a bunch of Red Rattlers with no substance and no plan,” Mr Ward said.

“Last year, Labor’s Illawarra spokesperson Ryan Park announced he would smash Illawarra commuters by ensuring his Labor Government would cancel the F6 extension which would improve travel times from thousands of commuters. They said they would deliver a rail plan!

“Another day, another press conference. More talk but no plan.

“As local commuters enjoy another NSW Government public transport achievement with more carriages for the South Coast Line, Labor still has no plan other than to cut a major infrastructure project and try and talk a big game on public transport.

“Voters in Shellharbour, Wollongong and Keira are simply too loyal to Labor. Labor knows it needs to win marginal seats to try and win Government. They have no plan for the Illawarra other than to talk a big game and deliver little whilst taking the support of voters in Shellharbour, Wollongong and Keira for granted.

“They tried this one in 2015 with the Albion Park Rail Bypass. “Watch this space” they told us! “We’ll have something more to say closer to the Election Day” they said. As we now know – all Labor ever did was vote against this major project in Parliament and they had no plan to match it.

“With less than three months till the next election, Labor need to stop behaving like a mid-term opposition and offer real alternatives. Will they match our billions of dollars of delivery and commitment? Or will they continue to front the press conferences, talk a big game but offer absolutely nothing.

“Labor has a plan to talk a big game, but they have absolutely no plan for the Illawarra,” Mr Ward concluded.